---
title: 'The One Chord Every Songwriter Needs to Know'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=2IwZMWifDTo'
video_id: '2IwZMWifDTo'
date: 2026-07-31
duration_sec: 1671
---

# The One Chord Every Songwriter Needs to Know

> Source: [The One Chord Every Songwriter Needs to Know](https://youtube.com/watch?v=2IwZMWifDTo)

## Summary

This video explores the dominant 7 chord, which the presenter argues is the most important and versatile chord in songwriting. It covers how the chord is constructed, why its tritone interval creates tension, and how to use it in multiple roles—from a simple V chord to secondary dominants, extensions, alterations, and tritone substitutions. Real song examples like Stevie Wonder's 'Isn't She Lovely' and the blues are used to demonstrate practical applications.

### Key Points

- **The Most Versatile Chord** [00:02] — The dominant 7 chord can sound bluesy, funky, romantic, mysterious, and pretty. It creates movement, allows seamless key changes, and works almost anywhere in a chord progression.
- **How the Dominant 7 Is Constructed** [00:56] — Triads are built by leapfrogging over every second note (1-3-5). In C major, the diatonic triads are C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim. Adding a fourth note creates seventh chords; the fifth chord becomes G7.
- **Major Triad Plus Flat 7** [02:45] — A dominant 7 chord is a major triad (1, 3, 5) with a flat 7 added. A major 7 chord uses a natural 7, a semitone away from the root/octave; the flat 7 is what makes the dominant chord unique.
- **Between Major and Minor** [03:58] — The dominant 7 chord sits between bright, stable major and dark minor. It has a major third but the flat 7 gives it a dark, unsettling sound, making it neither fully happy nor fully sad.
- **The Tritone** [04:55] — The interval between the 3rd and flat 7th is three whole tones, called a tritone. Historically known as the 'devil's interval,' it creates restless dissonance that demands resolution.
- **Case Study: Isn't She Lovely** [06:17] — Stevie Wonder's song uses three dominant chords in different ways: F#7#9 as a borrowed color chord, B11 as a V chord extension, and G#7 as a secondary dominant pulling to C#m.
- **Extensions vs Alterations** [11:38] — All chords can take extensions (9, 11, 13) for color, but only dominant chords comfortably handle alterations (b9, #9, b5, #5). Alterations ramp up tension, making the resolution more satisfying.
- **Secondary Dominants** [15:05] — Any chord can be turned into a dominant to create a V-I pull to the next chord, temporarily shifting the tonal center. Examples include D7→G, E7→Am, F7→Bb, and A7→Dm.
- **Pulling Power in Isn't She Lovely** [19:52] — Each dominant chord in the song creates a pull to the next: F#7→B, B11→E, and G#7→C#m, keeping the entire chord cycle in motion.
- **The Blues Is Built on Dominant 7s** [20:33] — In the 12-bar blues, the I, IV, and V chords are all played as dominant 7ths, making the blues distinct and giving it a constantly shifting tonal center.
- **Tritone Substitution** [23:34] — Any dominant chord can be replaced by a dominant chord whose root is a tritone away (e.g., G7 → C#7). This works because they share the same tritone and enables chromatic bass movement.
- **Experiment and Apply** [27:17] — The dominant chord can serve any function—tonal center, V chord, secondary dominant, or tritone substitute. The presenter encourages exploring its relationships to other chords to create new progressions.

### Conclusion

The dominant 7 chord is an essential, versatile tool for any songwriter: it can act as the home chord, a V chord, a secondary dominant, or a tritone substitute. Understanding its construction and tension-driven nature opens up endless possibilities for creating movement and emotion in music.

## Transcript

bluesy it can be funky it can be [Music] romantic it can be
[Music] mysterious and it can be very [Music] pretty it creates movement allows for seamless key changes and sounds amazing virtually anywhere in your core
progression so I'm going out on a limb here to say that this is the most important and versatile cord of them all so in this video I'm going to show you voicings and inversions that you can experiment with and most importantly I'm
going to show you a number of ways you can immediately start using this chord in your songwriting and so without delaying the reveal any longer we are of course talking about the dominant seven chord and let's begin by looking at how
this chord is constructed if we look at the dionic chords in the of c and lay them out we see that we have the c major the D Minor the E minor the F major the the D Minor the E minor the F major the G major the a minor and the B diminished
Now chords are constructed in a particular Way by taking the scale and leap frogging over every second note so in the key of C to create the c major in the key of C to create the c major Triad we jump from C to e and then e to
G the one the three and the five to make the D Minor we go from D to F and then F to a to make the E minor we do the same thing leap frogging over every second
note and this is how Triads are constructed and if we follow this approach and map them all out we get major minor and diminished Triads in each position if we now add a fourth note to these chords something changes
about the quality of the chords so to continue the process of Lea frogging we continue the process of Lea frogging we add a b note or a seventh to the c major and that creates a C major 7 with the D Minor we had a C note which
with the D Minor we had a C note which is a flat 7 relative to the D and that creates a D Minor 7 E minor also becomes an E minor 7 F becomes an F major 7 in an E minor 7 F becomes an F major 7 in fourth position but the five chord the G
chord when we Leap Frog and add a fourth note to it we get an F note appearing now the F note in relation to the G chord is a flat seven so now we have a
major Triad with a flat seven added and this makes it different to a major 7even this makes it different to a major 7even a major 7 is a major Triad a 135 with a seventh note added that seventh note needs to be a semmit tone away from the
root or the octave the dominant chord is exactly the same in terms of the first three notes but it is that fourth note that differs that flat seven note on top of the major Triad gives us a dominant seven chord and the fact that it
naturally occurs in the fifth position of a dionic sequence is relevant and often determines how we use the dominant chord but as you'll see when we think something that we can move around in
different positions it becomes incredibly powerful and very versatile a quick listen to the difference between these chords how much difference does that flat seven make compared to the Natural 7even so if we take a C major
Triad add a b note to it we have a C major 7 we can do it down [Music] well and it's quite a sweet sounding chord if we however take that major 7
down another semitone to make it a flat 7 we get a c dominant 7 and that has a different mood and a different flavor to
dominant chord is sitting between the major and the minor in terms of mood so the major chord is generally thought of as fairly bright happy [Music] stable the minor chord or the Minor 7
stable the minor chord or the Minor 7 chord is darker with more sits in between [Music]
them and this is what makes it so interesting it's not really happy or sad it's not really major or minor even though it has a major three and certainly leans more to being identified as a major type of chord that flat seven
really gives it this dark and unsettling sound and this again allows us to use it in lots of interesting ways so one of the reasons it's got a slightly unsettling sound is because of the intervals that are arranged inside the
the arrangement of these intervals for a second you'll see something interesting going on between the three and the flat 7 the distance between the three and the flat 7 is a distance of three tones otherwise known as trone and if we look
at a c dominant chord for example and just isolate the three and the flat 7 those two notes
and it's quite unsettling and quite dark and has an interesting history as well at one point in time it was referred to as the devil's interval and was very unpopular with certain composers throughout history often being described
as Restless dissonance but for some composers like Leonard Bernstein it allowed him to create some truly iconic Melodies such as that of Westside stories Maria you also have the Simpsons theme incorporating this interval and
the trone really is very compelling because of this Restless dissonance that Restless dissonance is unstable and when we have an unstable element it wants to resolve and that need to resolve creates a lot
of movement that chord that dominant chord generally wants to take us somewhere else and so it has a tremendous amount of propulsion packed within it the question is where does it resolve to and
if we're going back to a dionic sequence the five chord generally wants to resolve back to the one so in the key of C C [Music]
back home but that really is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to possible functions and uses of the dominant seven chord let's look at the song Isn't She Lovely by Stevie Wonder because this
song has in it three dominant chords that are all being used in different that are all being used in different ways one two three four ways one two three four [Music]
now in the key of E the chords that naturally occur would be E major F minor naturally occur would be E major F minor gsh minor a major B7 CSH minor dsh
diminished back to e in the case of Isn't She Lovely we have several dominant chords being used to replace these naturally occurring dionic chords and the first one is that FSH dominant
FSH dominant nine now all dominant chords can have extensions added to them like major and minor chords the nine the 11 and the 13 can be added to each of those three chord types and the function of that F
dominant n is to create a slightly lighter jazzier sound in core progression because if we play it as it would naturally occur as an F minor you [Music] this which is a totally different feel
so instead Stevie Wonder opted for a borrowed chord an outside chord off the same root note but changing the quality of the chord from the minor to the dominant and in this case he's really making that substitution because he
wants the mood and the sound and the feeling that the dominant chord brings feeling that the dominant chord brings as opposed to the minor
b11 and it's in the five chord position so we expect it to be dominant but instead of getting the dominant seven we again get an extension the 11 this time gives this a lovely floaty kind of quality and that pulls us back
to the E CH the home chord before quickly jumping up to this the third dominant chord the G sharp 7 now that chord has been
placed there very deliberately for a specific function naturally that would specific function naturally that would be a g Shar minor in the key of E but the gsh 7 pulls us towards a very particular
chord and that chord is this chord the C Shar minor now we talked before about this idea that the trone is really unstable and the trone is only found in the dominant chord that's what makes it unique the fact that it's unstable and
wants to resolve gives it a tremendous pulling power to a new chord and what we pulling power to a new chord and what we see here is a gsh 7 with a 51 relationship to the chord we're heading for so this is one of the ways that a
lot of composers and songwriters use the dominant chord they use it by setting up a 51 relationship with a chord they really want to draw our ear to or Draw getting to the end of the chord cycle and we're coming back to start again at
that c Shar minor that gsh dominant 7 pulls us back to that C minor it creates the tension that is then released by the C minor in
a way that's far more satisfying than if we went from the gsh minor so let's just tear those chords in sequence again we start at the C minor we move to the F Domino
the dominant nine chord in the second position used for its textures and its colors we then move to the b11 a floatier option for the five chord which pulls us back to the one before going to the G Shar dominant
7 which deliberately then pulls us to the C minor to start the cycle again now there are lots of different Arrangements of this song and as you listen to different versions you pick up on some interesting choices being made
especially when it comes to the dominant seven chords so one of the things you sometimes hear is that F dominant 9 having another extension added to it and that's the 13 again another
[Music] color another variation you hear is when we go to the b11 you often hear the b11 played first
b11 you often hear the b11 played first before moving to this chord before moving to this chord which is a B7 flat n and this particular move gives us an insight into one of the beautiful things about dominant cords
which is that they can take not only extensions but things called alterations so we can add 9es 11s and 13s to major minor and dominant chords
but only dominant chords really handle the alterations and the alterations are the alterations and the alterations are flat n sharp n flat 5 and sharp five dominant chords handle these beautifully because those notes those alterations
ramp up the tension and the structure of the dominant chord is already unstable because of the trone so while the extensions are there to add color to those chords the alterations are really there to ramp up the tension and
sometimes we want to ramp up that tension so that the resolution feels more satisfying in this case the b11 going to the E chord sounds case the b11 going to the E chord sounds lovely but the B B1 going to the B7 flat
creates that little bit extra tension it's the same thing with the gsh dominant 7 one of the common substitutions for 7 one of the common substitutions for that chord is a g Shar 7 Shar five now
we're using one of the other alterations the sharp five and that chord sounds like this and that's quite tense but it resolves beautifully so with those alterations in
place we get [Music]
chord and showing all the different inversions that I'm using throughout this video so if you're interested in that check out the link below dominant cords are unique in their ability to handle all the different alterations
so that if you ever look at jazz charts you'll often see that a dominant chord you'll often see that a dominant chord is written with a little alt in Brackets next to the chord and what this is doing is saying to the performer choose which
alterations you want to put on top of that chord make those choices as you're going around the chord sequences so if we're in the key of A minor and that was we're in the key of A minor and that was our home chord the E7
is the five chord that wants to pull us back to that a minor so in terms of
available we have a flat nine [Music] [Music] sequence but we can also have more than
one alteration on a dominant chord at the same time so we could have for the same time so we could have for example an E7 flat 9 flat
longer you hold it the more uncomfortable it [Music] satisfying we could also do a sharp n
flat five [Music] to work for every kind of song but it's amazing to see how many popular
contemporary songs do contain little moments of altered dominant chords that are just there to really create this tension and then have it resolved by the next chord in the sequence so let's look at a concept called secondary dominance
which is using a dominant chord in a position that's not the fifth position in order to pull our ear to the next chord in the sequence and the easiest of C and again just to familiarize
ourselves with the natural chords we get a D Minor an E minor an F major a G a D Minor an E minor an F major a G major or a g dominant a minor B
diminished back to C if we C if we go to the two chord and make it a go to the two chord and make it a dominant
chord because the relationship between D and G is 51 so a move that you'll hear a and G is 51 so a move that you'll hear a lot is to go one chord to a dominant two dominant 5 back to the
one what if we take the three chord and make it make it [Music] power to not only the F chord that comes
to not only the F chord that comes next but also to the a minor the 51 next but also to the a minor the 51 relationship exists now between the E7 relationship exists now between the E7 and the a
minor and you can hear that the a minor now feels like the new tonal Center this is what a secondary dominant does it shifts our attention away from the original home base [Music]
and really draws our attention to a new tonal Center in this case a minor let's make the fourth chord [Music]
dominant is actually a really common move in a lot of genres so going from a four dominant back to a one chord is not a
relationship that gets created between the F chord and this chord here the B flat the B flat is a new chord it's not actually in the key so turning the four
chord into a dominant chord introduces an opportunity to bring into play a new chord from outside the key and potentially modulate to a new key
potentially modulate to a new key [Music]
chords that is starting to sound like it wants to go to a new key because we've brought into play that that B flat the five chord is of course naturally occurring as a dominant chord if we move to the sixth chord and make it dominant
to the sixth chord and make it dominant [Music] the 51 relationship that's now being set up is to this
up is to this chord the D the two chord in the key of chord the D the two chord in the key of C so this is a chance to either draw our C so this is a chance to either draw our attention to the D Minor which naturally
occurs or we can turn that into a D major which sounds great major which sounds great [Music]
that's the one dominant 6 minor 2 dominant 5 a 1625 but you can Versatility there where we could actually play three of those four chords
as dominant we can play the sixth chord as a dominant which pulls us to the two the five chord as a dominant which brings us home to the brings us home to the one so the dominant chord has within it
again because of that trone that unstable structure it has this pulling power and that pulling power is something that we as songwriters and composers can really leverage to create motion and momentum with our song If we
go back and look at Isn't She Lovely through the lens of this pulling power pattern emerging so we start with the c Shar minor go to the dominant two chord
and that dominant two chord is pulling us to that five chord creating a 51 us to that five chord creating a 51 relationship between FP and B the b11 is now pulling us to the one chord the home chord that dominant three gsh 7 is now
pulling us back to the C Shar minor where we begin the cycle again each of those three dominant chords has a pulling power that keeps the whole cycle going round but the fun doesn't stop there because of course we
have a whole genre of music called the blues that is constructed entirely from these dominant seven chords and this is a fact that makes the blues very
different from other genres of music using the 145 chord sequence so if we go using the 145 chord sequence so if we go 145 in the
you will hear that in a lot of country a lot of folk that's a really classic sound a lot of Rock uses the 145 as [Music]
that in a blues that 1 four and five are all played as dominant chords so we get this [Music]
continues to be timeless and fascinating for musicians and songwriters because each time we go to a new dominant core we're essentially kind of changing key we're not staying within the one key anyone who's tried to solo effectively
of Blues knows that they can use a pentatonic scale to really get across all three chords but to really get inside great Blues improvisation and consider great blu's Melody writing we need to consider the fact that each time
we move to a new chord we're essentially Shifting the tonal Center but there are other genres where dominant chords really form the backbone listen to any James Brown record and you're sure to hear the dominant n chord appearing like
hear the dominant n chord appearing like this such a great sound and there the dominant chord is the one chord it's
creating the tonal center it's not being used as a color or a substitute or the five chord pulling back to the one it is the one and another example of the Domino chord being used as the one is this song
that E7 sharp nine chord has become so recognizable as the Jimmy Hendrick purple hay chord but you find that chord in other songs including Michael it's being used at a pivotal moment in the song to deliver the key change so
of the dominant chord it can be used in any position in your chord sequence whether or not it's the tonal Center the home chord or it's being used as a five chord to pull you back to the home chord or it's being used as one of these
attention to a new tonal Center the dominant chord is very effective and very comfortable playing all of those roles but there's one more trick that dominant chords have up their sleeve and it relates back to the trone buried
within the structure so if we look at a Blues in the key of G G7 is the one chord C7 is the four chord D7 is the five chord coming back
to the one now the trone substitution rule states that you can play any dominant chord off its trone using the trone note
as the new base note of that chord so to find the trone we start with the G and find the trone we start with the G and we go up three the C Shar is also here and if I play the chord like this the G7 like
the chord like this the G7 like this I'm voicing the one the flat 7 and the major 3 I can then drop this note here which is the trone sub keep these two the same and I've got
sub keep these two the same and I've got a perfect substitution for that G7 I've a perfect substitution for that G7 I've got a C Shar 7 being a perfect trone sub got a C Shar 7 being a perfect trone sub for the G7
now the question is why do we care about the trone subs and the answer is it allows for some really interesting Baseline movement so if we're playing a blues and G each of these three chords will have their own trone Subs
will have their own trone Subs available G7 has the c 7 available the four chord C7 has the F 7 available and the d75
chord has the G Shar 7 available and one of the things that makes blues sound so good is side slipping between some of the notes and by that I mean semitone movement above or below the chord we're approaching this trone sub approach
slipping I'll demonstrate [Music]
Blues it can be used wherever you've got a dominant chord and a really nice way to use it is if you've got a 251 say in the key of the key of C so a 2551 in the key of C would be D
C so a 2551 in the key of C would be D Minor D Minor 9 in this case G7 or G13 and back to C major 7 so that move
there is a classic sounding move but if we use the trone sub on the G7 and instead play a C Shar 7 something interesting happens we now get a chromatic bass movement from D down to C down to C
C down to C [Music] really nice [Music]
the style or genre we're writing in the dominant chord really can be used in any position and to serve any function in your compositions so I would encourage really been using the dominant chord to take a closer look at it and focus on
the relationships between the dominant chord you're using and the other chords release that you can create with those combinations of chords and see if it and come up with some new and interesting chord progressions happy
interesting chord progressions happy songwriting bye